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JOHN LACK:

Several months before the ESPYs, I went to Bornstein one day up in Bristol and told him I wanted him to take a look at a tape from last night. It was a basketball show, college hoops. I think it might have been Digger Phelps or maybe even Vitale on with Jim Valvano. I said to Steve, “Look at Valvano. He’s dying on our air. I think we should do something about it.” He said, “Like what?” I said, “Steve, we don’t give to anybody, except maybe a little money to the Special Olympics. With this huge juggernaut of a company, we make all this profit but we don’t give anything back. Our guy is dying on the air of cancer. Let’s start a foundation.” Bornstein looked at me and said, “Well, geez, John, how do we do this?” I said, “I’ll do it, you just gotta approve it.” Then I told Steve I heard he was going to be doing this Arthur Ashe thing at the first ESPYs, and I thought we should give it to Valvano. He said, “He’s certainly deserving of it.”

So we called Valvano in that day. Steve tells him, “John wants to start a foundation for you.” He looks at me and says, “You would?” I told him we wanted to call it the V Foundation for Cancer Research. “What do you think?” His eyes misted up and he rose a bit—by that time, his little body was getting thinner and thinner. He says, “I don’t know what to say to you guys.” I told him the ESPYs were in three months, and that he was going to get the Arthur Ashe Courage Award. He said, “I can’t believe you guys are doing this for me.” I said, “Jimmy, you are us, baby.”

STEVE BORNSTEIN:

I had wanted ESPN to be significantly involved in a charity and when Lack and I, at the Radisson in Bristol, had pitched Jim and Pam on the idea for the foundation—and coming to the ESPYs—no one could have guessed how bad he would get and how soon.

DAN PATRICK:

After Jim did his last college basketball show for us, he was in the back of the newsroom over by the printer and I walked up to him and I said, “I want you to know that I’ve purposely stayed away from you the last couple of months.” He’s like, “Why, why?” I told him my dad had died of cancer. And the first thing he said is, “How long did they give him to live?” And I said, “Six months.” He asked, “How long did he live?” I said, “Six months to the day.” He told me, “Look, do me a favor, when I die, make sure the picture you put above your shoulder on SportsCenter is a good one.” He started crying, I started crying, right there in the newsroom. I hugged him—and never saw him again.

DICK VITALE:

My friendship with Jimmy V really developed when he came to ESPN. We were working together, and even though he had cancer, he was going to work right to the end. One night we were on the road, and I was in the restaurant. The girl said, “Mr. Valvano would like to talk to you,” so I got on the phone and he said, “C’mon upstairs, we’ll watch the show together.” I think it was a show with Frank Sinatra. So I go up to his room, and I will never forget this—every time I hear his name I think of this moment. We’re sitting there watching this show and then all of a sudden out of nowhere he jumps out of the bed and starts punching the walls, screaming, and crying about the pain. He said, “Take your worst toothache and run it through your body and that’s what I feel.” But he was determined to beat it. He kept saying to me, “They say 20 percent can beat it, and I’m going to be that number. I’m going to beat this.” He exercised; he did everything they told him to do. And he couldn’t wait for this big checkup to get some good news.

That night I called his house. I had just done an ESPY rehearsal at Radio City. I called and his wife got on the phone. She was crying and I could tell, man, this is not good. She said, “He said he doesn’t want to get on the phone with anybody.” And I said, “You got to get him on the phone.” He got on the phone and he just kept saying, “It’s over, Dickie V, it’s over.” I tried to give him a little inspiration, but he said, “I don’t want to hear any inspiration. I’m not going to see my little